Matthew 5 verses 1 to 12. Now when he saw the crowd, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them saying, Blessed are the four in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comfortable. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you and people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the topic who were before you, the word of the Lord. I was once driving in Wales. In the heaviest fog I've ever seen in my life, I had to pull off to the side of the road as the fog descended and I waited for the wolf man to attack my automobile. I was so depressed and cold I decided to turn on the radio and I turned on the radio and there was a special report on BBC 3 about pilgrims who go to Lourdes France because they believe the Virgin Mary appeared there once and because of that miracles will happen. So this particularly cynical BBC reporter goes to Lourdes and finds someone who's about to go get into the waters. To his surprise, this woman is not an idiot, but a very educated woman and accomplished professional opposition. And so in his most snotish David Frosty way, he says, do you actually expect anything to happen to which this woman fired back at him in a way that was not so much anger as much as it was just pain? Why is it so impossible for anyone to believe that God would want to bless me? I think within every heart there is a longing among us for God to bless us, to bring into our life that which is missing, to make right that which is wrong. And at the beginning of the sermon on the mouth, that greatest of teachings, Jesus Christ begins his teaching with that very word, with that very, if you dare, open it up, that very door that says, you can know blessedness. You can know the blessed presence of God. You can know what it is to have that which you long for, met. To understand Jesus though, I think we have to get a handle on what this word blessed means. And even as we read all the beatitudes today, and as we're going to unpack them throughout the length and season, today basically all you need for your sermon text is that word, blessed, or in true King James fashion, blessed, which somehow rolls off my old King James tongue easier than blessed. The attitude that word that is not found in the text is from the Old King James Bible, and that word comes to us as a translation of from the Latin Bible of the word for blessed, or here it is, the Greek word Macarius, words that were translated, and it comes to us in most of our English versions, either as blessed or happy. And I'm actually going to keep using that word blessed in the series. We're calling this the blessed life. But I want to say to you, when you talk about blessing, you are probably not approximating what the Bible really means by the word. What Jesus Christ meant when he said, Makarioi, when he used this word, what you think of as blessing, what I generally think of when we say, I'm blessed, or bless you, bless me Father, for I have sinned. Any of those phrases that sort of may be part of your memory or part of your shape, probably do not are not strong enough to articulate what it is Jesus Christ says on this mountain. Because the word he uses is a word to describe that which our deepest inner longings aspire for, being blessed, or thinking about those who are blessed, if something that you and I do all the time, whether we know it or not, whether or not you're the kind of person who would ever let such a religious term come off your lips, you think about being blessed all the time. Now a clue to sort of get at what the word means is from seeing how it's used in the Bible. The clue is this, notice that in scripture we talk about God blessing us, but also particularly in the Psalms, there's a frequent reference to us blessing God. You ever thought about that? And said, you know, Lord, we bless you. What does that mean? Lord, here's your new candle, what does it mean to bless the Lord? What are you saying? What does the Psalms mean when they say, I say, bless the Lord, oh my soul. It opens up, I think, what it means when we say God blesses us. When you say, bless the Lord, or I think more appropriately, when the Bible uses this term, it's a term that gets at our heart's deepest thought about God. It's an expression of unqualified approval. It's an expression of delight or satisfaction of awe, of praise, of worship. I bless you, Lord, now to take that rich concept that is so appropriate for a human being to express toward God Almighty, awe, wonder, satisfaction, complete and total joy in who you are, and turn that around to God himself, now God the Son speaking to you and saying, bless, are you? Bless your name, oh my soul. What does that mean? This is a translation of a Hebrew word, ashré, a word that is used to describe someone who is unbelievably lucky, someone who's fortunate, someone who should be congratulated, someone who's placed in life is extremely enviable, heroic, ultra-approved, someone who is gay barely the bomb. It's not just a word to say, you're happy and blessed. It's saying something about your very life itself, the life you live is one that people want to have. Britney Spears, musical career in the 1990s, turning into the 2000s rock musician, wouldn't kill for that. Austin Powers, international man of mysteries, Mojo in the 1960s. Who would not love to have that in your life, in your relations with others? Or I was just reading, this will surprise some of you, about Tom Brady, the new England Patriots, most valuable player. Who after only two seasons was picked in the sixth round, a hundred ninety-nine pick of the year 2000. I had to look that up on the internet, okay, I didn't know that. But, led the Patriots to the Super Bowl and his second year of play. Here he is, at the top of his game. You know, and young, you know, I've got four boys, young kids, see people like that. And what do you want? You want to be like them. I remember as a kid watching, singing in the rain. And that great scene where Donald O'Connor does the make-em-lap and he starts, you know, dancing around on the furniture, and the furniture just glides down, and he's moving around and rolling. And there's a side to me that's not looking at the mirror, at my little 12-year-old chubster frame. And I'm thinking, that's me! I can do this! And so I ran up on the couch and, and yet, you see that, you see the winner. Haven't you been doing this this week in the Olympics? Who hasn't had a little tiny snowboard fantasy? Sherman has since the half-pipe. Haven't you had some, some little tiny part of you? Think about, you know, the camera on your face as the tears flow when the national anthem begins to play. There's something they have. There's something about their life, about their experience that evades you and me, they're iconic. And because of that, we envy them. We want what they have. We want the approval that flows out of that achievement, and out of the life they've lived. I know there's some of you here, and I don't know how different I am. A approval of others really does mean something to you. You have sought the approval of your parents and ever gotten it. You seek the approval of society, and it evades you, and it makes you angry, or you seek the approval of the people you work for. You're a parent killing yourself because you just want your children to approve of you. These things drive us, and if the root of this word, I shall pray, is that very idea. The life that you look at and go, wow, give them a medal. Jesus dares to use this loaded word to these groups of oppressed people on this mountain. He says, the bomb. That kind of life. You have. But he says, he does something. He opens up, he goes into, I think, a very strange place. Because on the one hand, he uses a word that for them, and if we study it, and for us, I think it can be the same, he uses a word that opens up and says, open up and think about the deepest desires of your heart you have for your life. The deepest desires you have for your life. The deepest desires you have for your legacy. Open it up. And then he says, by inference, I think, because of what he says, he says down, embrace contradiction. First of all, embrace contradiction. Even though you have these deepest longings for the life of approval, the deepest longing for the life that people, you know, that dream about, know this, it will contradict your actual desires. It will be counterintuitive. The path to that life for those in my kingdom will not go according to your plans. It will go according to my plans. And secondly, he says, not only do you embrace the contradiction, but you must necessarily embrace me. If you ever want the approval that frankly is the only opinion that matters, and that's the opinion of the ultimate person in the universe. God, that makes any very remote to some of you emotionally and psychologically, but by speaking as he does, Jesus begins to say, ultimate approval actually comes from the one who matters. God. Now, embrace the contradiction, and then embrace of Jesus. There are paradoxes in this text. Did you not notice them as you began, as Becky began to read them to us? Blessed are the poor in spirit. For those are, for they shall, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn. What was the last time you saw a lifestyles of the rich and famous episode dedicated, to mourning or poverty? You see, there are profound paradoxes. Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers of the 19th century, a Baptist minister in London, preached a series on this. I read his sermons, and I was struck by his comments. He said, the way to blessedness is a paradox for poverty leads the way and persecution brings up the rear. Isn't it ironic that Jesus would say the poor will possess a kingdom? Again, we'll get to that next, that's next week. The poor will possess a kingdom, because couldn't you honestly say, I mean, who's really rich? I mean, who's richer than the Queen of England? Maybe one or two people on earth? To possess a kingdom as ultimate riches. Do you see what he's saying? Approved. The ultimate smart bet. You see, this is Jesus Christ. The ultimate insider, offering the ultimate insider trading tip, saying, if you want the life that frankly is the life we're having, the life that will last forever and will never fall away, you embrace the contradiction, you embrace the paradox, and you embrace me. He's saying the experience of being blessed is counterintuitive. I can't resist this, but you know, in the Lord of the Rings, one of the stories you come across are the stories of hobbits. I don't know if you've missed this. God help you. But if you have missed this wonderful story somehow in our culture, go read it, because there is much the Lord can take us through the Lord of the Rings, I believe. But hobbits, the word hobbit comes from the word, one of their languages that Tolkien invented, the word that means whole builder. And a hobbit is someone who lives in a hole. And if you ever read that book, the hobbit, it begins by saying there was a hobbit who lived in a hole in the ground. Now, it wasn't a musty dirty hole with little ends of worms in it, but it was a hobbit hole. And a hobbit hole means, anybody know? Comfort. Thank you. Yes, a hobbit hole means comfort. And the very word itself means whole builder. And what Tolkien begins to show us in these little beings who are about half our size and have little fur covered feed is that they are completely driven by comfort. Even though there are other races who are defending their borders and doing all the hard stuff, you know, the people of Gondor or keeping the evil people away, they live in their little paradise called the Shire and they love to live in their little holes. And then you come across these least little guys like Bilbo and Frodo who have some black sheep in their family. And the black sheep goes back actually to Bilbo's grandfather, Frodo's adopted great grandfather, who's called the Old Took. Because the Old took did something that hobbits considered to be the thing of any society. He went on an adventure. It's sort of the proverbial went out to get a pack of cigarettes and never came home. That's sort of what the old took. He just went and he never came back. And there's this great fear among Bilbo particular, if you read the hobbit, that he has this wander less than he and he suppresses it because adventure is terrible. And finally, Frodo, who spends his life wondering the Shire, trying to find it, eventually goes on the great journey of the ring. Now, why is there a movie? Why are there billions of dollars presumably going to be made on all of these enterprises? Because the adventure's the thing. Isn't that the story? Would anybody go see a movie about hobbit holes? That would be a documentary in a very small market. And what you see is that in all true stories, all the great stories, it's always the path you wouldn't otherwise choose. It's always the adventure, not that you go in the door of the wardrobe, and you go into another world, not the world you pick. The painting, don't you read the fantasy stories, the painting sucks you into the ship. You don't want to go to the ship. Jesus is telling you, frankly, what you ought to know if you read fiction, that in all the great adventures happen to you, true greatness, true glory, true joy, are going to come through paths, through experiences, through things that, frankly, you wouldn't choose. But that's how they come. By the way, it's always been that way. I'll tell you one of my favorite Old Testament stories. In any of you who are grandparents, we're going to have too many of you, but it's one of my favorite grandparent stories in the Bible. Is the story of Jacob blessing his little grandchildren. You're going to read this story in Genesis, chapter 48. He blesses his grandchildren. These are the children of Joseph, his son, his beloved son, Joseph. Jacob is at the end of his life and you're glad he finally gets to enjoy the grandbabies. And as he does that, he blesses these children and he says this, may God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, may he bless these boys. And that sounds like a wonderful grandparent's oiling sort of sentiment, doesn't it? Because Jacob is speaking as someone who believes that God has richly blessed him, who has been my personal shepherd. What, committed to me, taking me to the green pastures, taking me to the still waters, all the days of my life, all the days of my life to this day, he says, may he do the same for you. But he does something strange. He doesn't bless the first born. He blesses the younger one. He puts the greatest blessing on the younger one. And Joseph, you know, you know, dad getting annoyed, you know, the old man's kind of losing it gets annoyed, tries to change his hands around and, and Jacob, you know, says, no, don't you understand? God never works the way you expect him to. The real path of blessing is never what you think it's going to be. I was doing it intentionally. I was crossing my hands on purpose. Imagine this, this old man saying, God has blessed me. All the days of my life. Now, don't you expect him to have had a Tom Brady kind of life? Don't you expect him to have had a Britney Spears sort of patriarchal career? Do you know anything about the life of Jacob? Jacob lived in a family with parents who ultimately did not love him a father particularly, who did not honor him, who did not give him the sort of nurture and encouragement that every child needs from the beginning of his life, he was neglected. Not only that, Jacob lived, he lived a horrible life. He fell in love and what happened? He got tricked into marrying a woman he didn't love. So, horrible home life, horrible marriage. But in those days it became possible for him if he basically became his evil father-in-law slave, he could possibly get the woman he loved and so he worked for 14 years for her. And he got her, finally, some happiness in his life. And she dies in childbirth. But he's got the children, right? Well, the child he don't so in love, this is child Joseph, whom his other kids thank the murder of. And he lives most of his life thinking that his most beloved child is murder. How is it that this man who lived a life that frankly most of the shutters to think that any of those things, whatever happened to us, can put the hand of blessing and say, may the God who has been my shepherd all the days of my life. He bless you the same way. He bless me. See, Jacob knows, number one, not just not only is Jacob embracing the contradiction, but Jacob knows that the path of blessing is not, it's in knowing him. It's in knowing the shepherd. It's embracing him. And that's really what Jesus is saying on his mouth. Jesus is saying, you've got to embrace the contradiction. My plans are not your plans. My ways are not your ways. But know this, true blessedness. The true approval that really matters. I and I alone can give it. You know, if you read the Old Testament, the book of the Prophet Malachi, ends his prophecy just four chapters long. It was the last book in the first testament of the Old Testament canon. And you know what the very last word is there? Curse. You know, in other words, you better get a new heart or I'm going to come down there and smite you with the curse. That's the end of the Old Testament. And if you're in the Proud putting that up in a wall somewhere, you know, that would celebrate curse. In fact when the law was given, there had to be two mountains. There was Mount Eball and Mount Gharazem. Because there was one mountain to read the blessings, but there had to be another mountain to read the prices. If you did not obey full of it, you see what is happening on this new mountain. It's something radical. and the word on his mouth is not curse, the word on his mouth, over and over again, and it's put in a form that people could memorize, and remember is, lest, I have come that you might be blessed. I have come, but you've got to come to me. Let me see what he's saying. I have come that you might be blessed, but you've got to come to me. That means the schemes, the things that you know. You know that God has said, do not go down this path. Turn away from these things. Though it's counterintuitive, though it seems painful to you to turn away from it, don't you understand? The real path of blessing is only in me. Ultimately, lent is an opportunity for self-examination. And by challenge to you during this season, this really is regardless of where you might be on the spiritual spectrum, whether you consider yourself a well-leaving Christian or not is, would you be willing to take a month between now and Easter to simply look at your life? Look at the choices you've made and ask yourself, do I really believe that the things I devote myself to, the things I spend my money on, the things that I obsess over and think about all the time, are these things going to make me? And am I really? To go to the man on the mountain and say, I'd lay these things down. Would you speak your blessing in life? Lord, as we come to this most holy table this morning, the bread and wine represents to us who did its truly life giving, a relationship that is transforming, a life of contradiction, a life that is that will never be celebrated in popular culture and any culture multicultural because it's the way of the cross. Would pray that you would open each eye, those who've never seen, those who profess belief and yet all who struggle to see that the way of Jesus is the way of true blessing. Give us ears to hear, we pray, and Jesus's name.